


Daisies and Cherry Pies

by mskamalakhan (blxegansey)



Category: Pushing Daisies
Genre: Gen, before Chuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-26
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-11 08:38:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4428701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blxegansey/pseuds/mskamalakhan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ned has a bad day and is comforted by Olive.<br/>This takes place before Chuck died and Ned brought her back to life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Daisies and Cherry Pies

It was precisely eighteen years, six hours and twenty-six minutes since Ned the Pie maker had said goodbye to his mother. Every year he visited his mother’s grave with a bouquet of daisies-her favorite-and a freshly baked cherry pie. This year, however, he failed to do so.  
The facts were these; Emerson Cod, private investigator, had presented him a corpse to touch. Belinda Moss was exactly thirty six years, eight months and eleven days old when she was walking to her car after a long day of work. She was attacked by a masked individual, who eventually beat her with a wrench. She told these to the private detective and the Pie maker, after Ned had touched her at the morgue.  
Her body was found in her car the next morning by one of her coworkers. According to the police report, her cause of death was suffocation, and her lungs were filled with water.  
The investigators explored the scene of the murder and the victim’s workplace; she was the head-manager at a hotel. Upon arriving there they soon realized that the hotel had a pool adjacent to the parking lot. There were intact footprints matching those found near Belinda Moss’s car. They looked for matching shoes in various shops for the rest of the day, and by the evening they were back in the hotel talking to a man named Marcus Sutton, in possession of a pair of shoes matching the size and shape of the footprints.  
Their visit to his room resulted in a fight, which was shortly interrupted by a man emerging from the bathroom holding a gun-that fortunately turned out to be unloaded.  
It was now precisely six minutes after midnight, three hours after that encounter that the Pie Maker was sitting behind the counter of the Pie Hole, his chin hoisted on his hands, looking at the last customer walk out of the place. A tiny blonde woman cheerfully sang and danced her way through the shop, until she stopped dead in front of the Pie Maker with her hands high up in the air.  
“Uh, Ned, I thought you were out. You really scared me.” She crossed her arms as she walked closer to Ned.  
“Sorry, Olive.” He sat straight up and ran his hands through his hair. “I had a really bad day.”  
“Do you want to talk about it?” Olive sat right in front of him, her head on her arms, mirroring what Ned was doing seconds ago. She gave him a warm smile.  
“I think so.” He suddenly got up and headed to the kitchen. “But I think I’ll make a pie first.”  
Olive wanted to follow him in there and talk to him, but she knew that at times like this he was better left alone. So she just watched him work from there, admiring how calculated yet passionate everything he did was. From the way he measured each ingredient and how he mixed everything, to how he looked at his final product and smiled.  
When he was finished he put the pie into the oven and slowly walked towards her. His hands were linked behind him and his back was a bit crouched, but there was a slight bounce in his steps and he seemed less unhappy in general. It was as if baking pies were therapeutic for him.  
“Let’s chat now, boss.” She patted him on his arm, unable to reach his shoulder. “What’s eating you up?”  
“Today…”he hesitated, “I probably shouldn’t bother you with this, Olive.”  
“Go on.” She urged him with an encouraging smile.  
“It was my mother’s anniversary. She died eighteen years ago from an aneurysm.” His eyes were shining with tears, “I always took flowers to her grave, but I couldn’t go this year.”  
A sob escaped his mouth as a teardrop rolled down his cheek and splashed on the counter. Olive did what she first thought of; she walked to the other side of the counter and hugged him. Standing on tiptoes she put her arms around his waist and gently patted him on the back. At first his hands were awkwardly hanging around her but then he circled them around her and crouched further down, putting his head on her shoulders, his tears now freely running. She whispered soothing words to him, while he silently wept for a few minutes.  
It had been eighteen years, five months and thirteen days since the Pie Maker had been comforted like that. The last time had been when he had been ridiculed and chased away by some of his classmates. His mother had lovingly held him and wiped away his tears. He could remember the smell of freshly baked pie mixed with flowers on her flowered apron. She had then took him to an ice cream parlor and bought him a colorful and delicious sundae.  
He left Olive’s warm embrace, but kept his hands on her shoulders. “Thank you Olive. That was really… heart-warming. I really needed that.”  
“That’s what friends are for,” Olive patted him once more. “I think your pie is ready now.”  
He dried his face with his sleeves, and then walked to the oven smiling, despite a teardrop rolling down his cheek. He was planning to eat some of the pie as it was baked with fresh cherries, not the usual revived rotten fruit.  
He came back to the counter with the cherry pie in his hand and carefully put the hot pan on a rack.  
“Earlier you were singing…”  
“Let’s not talk about that ever,” Olive interrupted him, her hands flailing around.  
“I was just going to say that you have a beautiful voice.” He beamed at her as he cut the pie.


End file.
